appitite

debbiejeanne,

I don’t know who Sharon is but I am sure she would be happy to answer you.

For me, I (happily) lived on smoothies for 7 months.  I would constantly try all foods, but my taste no taste and my disliked for texture and feel of 99% of all foods put me at a disadvantage.  Once when trying to explain my condition to my parents I placed a can of Crisco Shortening on the dining table and said “this is what food feels and tastes like to me”.  Needless to say, ONLY H&N members get it, outsiders only relate it to having a cold.

At 7 months post I was away from home and had to order some lunch, I had a Turkey sandwich and low and behold things had changed and I was back in the food eating game.

I now eat anything I want and always wash it down with 2, 3 or even 4 glass of water, ice-tea, pop or milk.  I am aware that things will get stuck in my throat, so pace myself accordingly.

My taster is at about 20% on average with some things much better and ice-cream at the bottom (poor ice-cream).  I am having a barbequed steak tonight with baked potato.  By the way steak hits the Matt taste scale at an 8 or 9, that is darn good.

Funny thing about appetite, the whole time I lived on smoothies I was never hungry.

Finally, I am at 13 months post and I hope Sharon checks in.

Matt

After my husband's largynectomy he was able to eat and did so slowly with plenty of water.  He had a feeding tube the first time from August 2010 until May of 2011.  About 6 weeks after his surgery, they allowed him to start eating soft foods and to work his way up.  Yes he did have problems with food getting stuck and he said food didn't really have a taste.  As time progressed he was able to eat whatever he wanted too and this took time.  He had trouble with ground beef and steak.  Just took a long time for him to eat and plenty of water to wash it down.  But since his second round of radiation which ended in July 2012 he really hasn't had an appetite and now it has gotten worse.  He is able to swallow liquids and soft foods but has no appetite for anything else.  Guess this is due to the spread of his cancer.  He does have a feeding tube and relies on it and without it, I don't know where he would be.  

If you are having a problem with food getting stuck you might need to have a dilation done.  He has had several since his surgery and in fact had one in February when the specialist did an endoscopy.  Have you had a swallow test?  This enables them to see any problems with swallowing.  

Sharon

I am three years out and food is always getting stuck. But, because the Doc took my uvula out it doesn't gag me I can just tell it didn't make the slide so I give it a hack and a sip of liquid and am ready for another bite. Matt pretty much hit the nail on the head with the Crisco reference. I was addicted to smoothies and and was proud of alot of the concoctions I came up with. Problem was I never wrote them down so everyone was different. Like Sharon stated meat or beef was a tough chew and still is today. At first the taste was just terrible but once my taste for beef came back swallowing it became the tough part and still is today. I just recently got my taste back for breakfast sausage. Also, everthing seemed to be salty which also pushed me towards smoothies as long as I didn't put to much ice cream in them because ice cream always tasted salty. Like always stated here, we all make our comeback differently and never as quickly as we want. But one thing I do know is..................it was all worth it.

Now I'm gonna go out on the front porch and watch the wife smoke another cigarette. I told her you were the one to take notice in my picture.

Take care

      Jeff

yensid683 said:

appetite

I'm 9 months post treatments and I have to say that I do have an appetite, most things are tasting normal, but anything that has a tart component to its normal taste is pretty difficult.  Any sour, any bitter is not the greatest taste in the world, but a great many things work now that didn't just a few weeks ago.

I feel a little guilty saying it, but my sense of taste started to recover in about 5 weeks post rads, the first thing I could detect was salt, but sweet, sour and bitter all came back.  Sour is tough at times, your body's normal response to sour is to flood the mouth with saliva, but since it doesn't happen all that well, sour is a very tough experience. 

I am surprised to find that I can eat just about anything, I will need to have sips of water to supplement the meager saliva that I'm actually producing, and I find that softer, more tender meats work, fries, burgers, a good steak, baked potatoes, sausage, pizza etc work.  Some have to be well chewed with small bites, but they do work. Fresh raw veggies like celery, carrots, cucumbe and lettuce work, onions dont' though, and surrprisingly. ice cream doesn't work well (very disappointing), mashed potatoes are like glue, and breakfast cereal is still like chewing sand and glass. 

I don't get much stuck, but I can tell when something will, I try to swallow something when it is a little too dry.

I hope things improve for you very soon

I am a couple of weeks shy of 1 year post tx. Just wanted to say when you are ready to try hamburgers, I suggest the less expensive cuts with more fat. For me, the less fat, the drier and harder to get down.